COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00003 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	%design[s90,jmc]		Notes on the design stance
C00005 00003	\smallskip\centerline{Copyright \copyright\ 1990\ by John McCarthy}
C00006 ENDMK
C⊗;
%design[s90,jmc]		Notes on the design stance
\input memo.tex[let,jmc]
\title{Taking the Design Stance to Language and Intentionality}


	Daniel Dennett (1971) introduces the design stance as a way of
understanding a physical system.  It complements the physical
stance, which understands the system in terms of the physical
interactions of its parts and intentional stance which describes
a system in terms of its beliefs and goals.  The design stance
understands an object in terms of what it is designed to
accomplish.

	Dennett's classic example is the alarm clock encountered
in motel.  The traveller sets it and is wakened by it without
ever paying attention to whether its rate is controlled by a balance
wheel, by the frequency of the local electric power or by
a quartz crystal in the clock.  This enables Dennett to argue
that ``alarm clock'' is not a name of a particular physical
system.  Dennett points out that the design stance is likely
to be successful in guiding what properties to expect of
either an artifact or a biological system whose properties
have evolved by natural selection.

	The object of this paper is to carry the idea of design
stance farther than Dennett does.  Specifically, we want to
analyze language and intentionality from the design point of
view.
\smallskip\centerline{Copyright \copyright\ 1990\ by John McCarthy}
\smallskip\noindent{\fiverm This draft of DESIGN[S90,JMC]\ TEXed on \jmcdate\ at \theTime}
%File originated on 08-Apr-90
\vfill\eject\end